oh, the irony

I was driving one day, and I'm stopped at a red light. A guy pulled up next to me in the left turn lane, which was also red. Now, this man was clearly very impatient - he kept inching forward until he was in the crosswalk, as if scooting up would somehow make the light change faster.

So, so foolish.

This guy apparently didn't know that the street lights change based on these coils under the road. There are a number of coils spaced evenly apart, and as a car pulls up over one, the street light will detect the car and change after a certain time, based on factors such as light order and how many cars are waiting (the latter sometimes determines light duration). It's just a simple inductive loop, really, which you can read more about here.

The thing is, if a car passes the first loop, which is placed a foot before the crosswalk (according to my civil engineer friend - thanks Chia!), then the car is no longer detected. So, this impatient man was edging up into the crosswalk, which normally wouldn't be a problem, except he was the only one in the left turn lane. This meant that, as far as the street lights were concerned, there was nobody in the left turn lane, and so there was no need for it to turn green.

And I just drove away laughing as he was stuck at the unchanging red light.